


Dead Man Dreaming

by randoms_and_fandoms



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Meditation, Valduggery - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3931705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randoms_and_fandoms/pseuds/randoms_and_fandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What does Skulduggery see when he meditates? And how does it come to reflect and influence his rapidly changing relationship with his protegee and friend, Valkyrie?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead Man Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I obviously don't own the Skulduggery Pleasant character and series. (Although if Derek Landy would be willing to share I'd be okay with it! ;) )

I am sitting cross-legged on an armchair, the cracked brown leather creaking softly beneath my weary bones. My home, or rather house (home suggests a personal attachment that I fail to feel towards this building which I keep from sheer necessity), is absent of any life, my own regrettably included. The air is still and free from any sounds or even scents. Although I had in time grown used to this ritual, I seldom experience solitude like this anymore and the lack of noise and movement seems startlingly foreign. Since meeting Valkyrie my days, though full of monsters, are also filled with light and laughter, remnants of a life that I thought I had left behind. I had forgotten how stifling silence can be. But it is also necessary sometimes. And that is why I have sent Valkyrie away for the day, instructing her to spend time with her family, to do the things most teenage girls do, to live as I cannot. I need to be alone. 

I am so tired lately, my bones aching and my absent brain somewhat fuzzy. I know the signs, the symptoms of my malady. I need to meditate. Where living people need to rest everyday, I only need to rest every month or so. But I’ve been busy lately and this time of peace is long since overdue. Knees bent, skulled head bowed gently as though in respect, I close my nonexistent eyelids, slow my long lost breaths, and drift into the only abyss I have left. When I was newly resurrected (if that is even the word for what I am) my thoughts while I rested were full of vengeance, bloodshed, the anger of a dead man. Given the events of my death, the losses I suffered and the revenge that fuelled even the most innocuous of my actions, this came as no real surprise to me and I had accepted that this would remain for the entirety of my existence, as stagnant as my immutable body. But lately, they have changed somehow. They have begun to mutate, to take on something of a life of their own, more akin to the dreams I vaguely recall from my past as a living person than anything else that I have experienced. Somehow I find myself clinging to them, clutching them to the chalky bones of my bosom as though to prove to myself that perhaps I am still as human as I once was, as I still long to be. And I know exactly what has brought this change about. The catalyst for the reactions of my atrophied mind. Her. She is the last thought I have as I drift away, the word forever on my decayed lips. Valkyrie.

The dream plays before me like a movie, blurred around the edges yet sharp and focused at the centre. There she waits for me, as though she has remained faithfully since the last time I regained consciousness, that self-same smile upon her crimson lips. The dream transitions, whirling rapidly through our time together in split-second frames; gleaming glimpses of her beauty. I see her running, hair drifting like smoke behind her. As in so many of my moments with her, she is surrounded by dust and debris, yet she remains beautiful all the same. This is how I see her; a shining jewel in the dark stone of this world that I have dragged her into, a world of pain and violence. I see her dancing to the elegant tune of a waltz, her black dress swirling around her like the shadows she commands with so much ease. I see her head thrown back as she laughs, revealing the milky white of her throat, as pale as my bones but a million times more lovely. As she spins the colours melt together, engulfing me as the moment changes again. She stands before me, so young and pure, yet with a mischief in her smile that calls to the wicked humour within my soul. This is my favourite scene and there are a plethora of reasons why. I get to see her as I seldom do, carefree and innocent, without the weight of the world weighing heavily upon her shoulders. I get to see the way she looks at me; adoration and joy clear in those sparkling chocolate orbs. And best of all, I get to see her joy as she summons a flame for the first time, her delight at the magic and her new found power. I see how her skin is cast in brilliant light as the glow lights her face in flickering amber hues. I hear my voice say ’magic,’ but it’s no longer the flame that I’m speaking of.


End file.
